When I do sleep, the slightest thing wakes me up. An itch, drip drip drip of everything outside after rain (rain itself is not so bad. Kind of soothing). Tap tap of a moth trying to mate with the light bulb.
That fun period of actually drinking is gone. (Yes I do enjoy it. It wasn’t just an addiction)
Several days can almost feel like one loooong day.
Restless Leg Syndrome is not surpressed. (My legs feel the uncontrollable urge to twitch and move during the night)
Increased Appetite. When I drank I could make do with eating one average sized meal at work and nothing else. Now I have an appetite for snacks and big meals.
Pros.
I can get home from work and lounge around and do things. There’s no necessity to get the drinking out of the way early. (so that I have time to get sober before work/the next day)
I can read in bed. (I tried to read drunk, but I’d be desperate to get to the end of the page because it was such hard work)
Remembering dreams is likely. (And boy do I love dreaming)
Lucid dreaming is possible.
I feel better, mentally, about myself.
Despite the hours I spend trying to sleep I have a lot more time to get things done.
No risk of stupid late night threads. (Instead there’s the risk of insomnia threads like the one in GD. And the general lameness of my daytime posts/threads)
Try a calcium/magnesium supplement for the leg thing. The insomnia will gradually resolve. I think you’ll find you are better rested overall, even if you don’t sleep as many hours. Keeping on a regular schedule is good. Exercise helps, too, especially if you are craving a drink.
Keep busy. Do all the little things that you kept putting off and enjoy the fact that you are getting them done.
Don’t forget:
The money you’ll save by not drinking.
No more hauling half a ton of recycling to the curb weekly.
You can now drive anytime, anywhere.
Get to lord it over the rest of us drunks.
Can remember where you put the car keys the night before.
No more drunken dials.
Chances of vomiting go waaaay down.
Actually remember who that person is in the bed next to you and how they got there.
Good one, I forgot about the money I’ll save.
I haven’t vomited in years, I don’t have a car, I drank alone (so wake up next to a wall is all I could look forward to), and I was a functional drinker. I.e. I’d plan everything before drinking so that I’d know where my keys are, have clean clothes to wear, hopefully not be still drunk in the morning.
But the Pros still have it.
I’ve heard that iron is good for the restless legs. A friend has offered me some free melatonin tablets (for the sleep). and I can get anti-histemines for the itching, and some poison for next door’s dog… ok not the poison, I’ll make do with earplugs.
I’ve done it before. I get sick of the routine. This time round my mother confronted me and said “I’m worried about your drinking” I didn’t think to myself “I’ll stop now” But the day after I suppose I considered that a good catalyst to stop again.
It’s only a trial. I am taking it one day at a time. It could last days, weeks, or forever. I really don’t know.
Have you considered going to a meeting. There are differing opinions about 12 step programs, but meeting with others who are staying off alcohol too can be great support. It’s a wonderful place to meet new friends. the kind of friends that can also help you stay sober. And you’ll be helping them too.
Don’t be overwhelmed by the “God stuff.” Take what you need, and leave the rest.
I just quit too after 11 years of extremely heavy daily drinking. I just made my two month mark. I am putting a LOT of effort into it such as 5 AA meetings a week, a group therapy study at for Harvard medical school one night a week, another group therapy at a dedicated addiction hospital once a week, and psychologist appointments. I had failed the previous times I tried to quit because I thought that I could do it on my own and couldn’t.
I went through rehab first and that was very beneficial. It at least got most of the physical part out of the way in a safe setting. That part was pretty bad. I couldn’t even sign my name at one point because my fine motor control was completely gone. I had lingering physical withdrawal symptoms for about three weeks after that and then rturned to normal which I hadn’t felt in years.
Good luck. It is not supposed to be easy or we all would have succeeded a long time ago. Keep in the front of your mind that alcohol addiction is a powerful disease that will destroy you, everything you have, and those that are close to you. You are at the hardest part now. It will get easier if you can just hang in there a little while.
That sounds familiar. My hand shook too much to make a recognisable sig. I was lucky none of the shop staff ever bothered to compare it to the one on my debit card. Even when I was buying alcohol. I was in there every single day. Those people must recognise me and know pretty much why I’m there.
Not to trivialise it, but it’s not been all that difficult. But in my experience it gets worse after the first few weeks, when I start to miss the nights of drinking. This didn’t start out as a serious conscious decision to quit. I just wanted a break. But I’ve lasted longer than expected so I may as well make this my second big attempt to quit completely.
I got sober for the second time (hopefully for good, God willing) on November 4, 2002. I did it in a very public way, too, with this thread. I don’t remember much of those very dark last few weeks of drinking, but I knew that finding sobriety again was imperative. Maybe you’ll see a bit of yourself in my OP; maybe not. Still, I’m putting it out there for you to read.
The first few weeks were very hard, but I knew from my first go at it that it would indeed get better, even though in the moment it often felt almost as bad as when I was drinking.
I celebrated my one year sobriety anniversary here on the boards as well. (The thread defies the search page.) My life had completely changed.
I’m still sober and looking forward to marking two years in less than two months. I find it’s easier when I don’t think about drinking; instead, I reflect on all that sobriety has given me, and how lucky I was to get a second chance at it. Perhaps doing the same will help you.
Good for you for deciding to do it.
I used to drink quiet a bit on weekends. Last New Years Day, I decided I wanted to quit. So I did. I was going to not drink for 6 months, just to see if I could do it. I had planned on drinking again at my family’s annual camping trip/reunion in July. Someone handed me a wine cooler and I took about three small drinks out of it and dumped it out.
I did not miss drinking at all.
Over Labor day weekend, I went out with my sister. We went to a bar with some of her friends. I think I had 6 drinks total the whole night ( from 7pm to 4 am ). I had no desire to go out and drink the next weekend.
Since Labor day weekend I have had one Barcardi Raz.
My technique was to recognize that I didn’t have to swear an oath that I would stop all drinking. I just wouldn’t drink this drink. The word is “one day at a time.” Since I was a continual drinker, with me it was one [non]drink at a time.
I handled insomnia by just getting up, turning on the light and reading. Sooner or later I got sleepy and finally the insomnia went away. I also stopped waking up really pissed at a dream that I had taken a drink.
My type of insomnia is different. If I get up and read (or just read) I can feel tired. As soon as I put the book down and put my head on my pillow I’m suddenly not tired.
Although recently I am managing by just having the right frame of mind. Reminding myself that I’m in bed, and not at work, where I wish I was in bed. Or reminding myself that I don’t have to get up for 10 hours, rather than having to get up in 2, which is annoyingly when I can easily sleep. It doesn’t always work, but eventually I just forget that I am trying to sleep, and sleep.
By admitting that I’ve stopped drinking here I’ve kind of accidentally sworn a kind of oath. An oath of pressure. Now, if I have a drink or start drinking I’ll feel guilty about having told people I’ve stopped (part of the reason I never tell my close relatives) whereas if I’d told no-one, I wouldn’t feel that bad about drinking again.
So in a way it’s for my own good that I’ve put myself under that preasure, because I won’t find it so easy to start drinking.
I envy people who can have a drink at the weekend. I love having a drink, but I love being sober all week. I am cursed to never be able to have both.
That, I think, is the most frustrating kind of insomnia. I’ve had the “I’m just not sleepy” stuff, the premature waking type, and what you describe. The whole deal where you’re nearly falling asleep in your chair, but as soon as you crawl into bed you’re wide awake and your mind just. won’t. shut. up. I hate that last type. Loathe it, really. Sometimes it helps to just sleep on the couch or in the guest room.
Remember, alcohol is a depressant that really mucks up many people’s sleep patterns. And these changes do not resolve with just a few days or weeks of abstinence. It usually takes months for the alcohol-induced sleep changes which occur in susceptible people to start to normalize.
Best way to deal: Regular bedtime and rising time. 30 minutes of aerobic exercise a day, at least 2 hours before retiring. Don’t use commercial or prescription sleep aids, they tend to just perpetuate the situation (the jury is still out on melatonin regarding this).
And remember, unless you have Fatal Familial Insomnia, lack of sleep itself doesn’t kill.